President Trump once called Rupert Murdoch “my very good friend.”
But the Baron of the 94 -year -old media, whose fortunes have increased together with Trump's political rise, has become an unlikely enemy.
Trump approached a Wall Street Journal report that he allegedly sent a suggestive letter to the sexual offender Jeffrey Epstein for his 50th birthday in 2003. Trump denied sending the message, calling him “false”, and last month he filed a demand for defamation of $ 10 billion against the editorial of the Journal Dow Jones & Co., Murdoch and others.
The billionaire, which is at the top of the most prominent conservative media empire in the world, has become the focus of the president's fury.
“I hope that Rupert and his 'friends' look forward to the many hours of statements and testimonies that will have to provide in this case,” Trump wrote on his Truth social platform, a nod to “Fox & Friends”, one of his favorite television programs. The Journal, he wrote, is a “disgusting and dirty rag”, and the newspaper “'Murdoch garbage battery”.
Trump's lawyers requested more heat last week in a surprising attempt to force Murdoch to appear quickly for a statement. In a motion, Trump's lawyers cited the complications of the age and health of the tycoon, which they said includes an episode of recent fainting, and in the last five years, a broken back, a tendon of aquiles torn and atrial fibrillation, which could make Murdoch “not available for the testimony in the person in the trial.”
Through a spokesman, Murdoch declined to comment.
The fight provides a rare vision of the tangled relationship of two titans whose treatment date back to half a century when the Murdoch born in Australia arrived in the United States and bought the New York Post, a blunt tabloid with shout holders. Trump forged his reputation as a New York real estate magnate, in part, when distributing the firstfruits of the six -hungry page of the newspaper celebrities.
And Fox News would become one of Trump's biggest champions. The network has accumulated for a long time in positive attention that helped Trump transform from the reality television star to the political hero of his Make America Great Again Again base.
The cable network gave Trump a platform for its infused conspiracies “Birther” about former President Obama. And Trump's political rise helped make Fox News a qualification and a financial giant. This summer, Fox News is located as the United States number 1 network, according to the Nielsen measures firm, attracting more spectators during stellar hours than transmission leaders NBC and CBS.
In addition, a series of Fox News personalities have joined the Trump administration, including former weekend host, now Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth.
Murdoch and Trump “feed each other: they have had this relationship since the 70s, where they benefit from each other,” said Andrew Dodd, a professor of journalism at the University of Melbourne. “But they also have these turns where they are against each other.”
Gabriel Kahn, Journalism professor at the USC and former Wall Street Journal reporter said the tension is real.
“As much as Rupert has pumped Trump World in the last 10 years, Rupert really looks at himself as the creator of Reyes, not the Lacayo,” Kahn said.
Publications on Trump's social networks over the years reveal episodes of frustration with Murdoch and their media properties.
The two men have different political philosophies: it is known that Murdoch is a republican of Reagan of a small government, “is not a true conservative populist” in the Maga vein, according to a Republican political operation that was not authorized to speak publicly.
The experts and observers point out a series of Desales, including a 2015 comment that Murdoch made on Twitter a month after Trump descended to the golden mechanical staircase in the Trump tower to announce his first presidential offer, and then lit a storm of fire with anti -immigrant comments.
“When will Donald Trump be ashamed, much less to the whole country?” Murdoch asked a decade ago.
The Fox CEO, Lachlan Murdoch, and his father, Rupert Murdoch, in 2018.
(ADWARDS / GC images of Adrian)
Murdoch, in shifts, tried to recruit or boost rival presidential applicants. The Republican governor of Florida, Ron Desantis, received a flattering coverage in Fox News early in the mandate of President Biden.
At that time, Trump returned to Mar-a-Lago after losing the 2020 and Fox News elections was sailing through treacherous ground. The network was the first important exit to call Arizona for Biden on the night of the elections, Riling Trump and their supporters who saw the movement as a betrayal, one that cuts short -circuiting their statements that the elections had been stolen. Fox News witnessed an immediate spectator exodus.
To recover Trump's supporters, the network gave a platform to Trump's substitutes who suggested that the machines turned the votes for Biden, despite Murdoch and others knew that such statements were false, judicial presentations revealed.
Dominion and Smartatic voting systems demanded by defamation. The discovery in Dominion's demand revealed that, two days after January 6, 2021, Riot in the United States Capitol, Murdoch wanted to carve at a distance, write a former executive: “We want to make Trump a non -person.”
In a deposition of 2023, Murdoch admitted false mistakes of spreading unfounded theories. Fox that spring agreed to pay Dominion $ 787.5 million, one of the largest payments of a demand for US defamation. UU. The smartmatic case is still pending.
“They promised the 'great lie',” Dodd said on the electoral coverage after Fox News. “Now, in the twilight years of his life, Murdoch [may be] Thinking: “Well, this man is really worth supporting more.”
Such change would not be out of place. Murdoch, in the past, has promoted political leaders and governments, just to get that support.
In the 1970s, after initially supporting the then Prime Minister of Australia, Gough Whitlam, Murdoch supposedly ordered their editors to “kill whitlam”, in a political sense (not violent). Twenty years later, in Great Britain, Murdoch left the conservatives after being a nearby ally of former leader Margaret Thatcher. He threw the weight of his tabloid, the sun, behind Tony Blair of work.
After years of going back to conservatives, the sun returned to work and Keir Starmer last year, saying that “it is time for a change.”
“Murdoch has a long career to break what he does,” said Dodd.
His vast empire, divided between News Corp. and Fox Corp., allows their points of sale to have different inclinations. The Journal has lent a more skeptical coverage to Trump. He broke stories about Trump's silent money payments to the Stormy Daniels porn star and former Playboy Bunny Karen McDougal. This year, its editorial board described its high rates “the most silly commercial war in history.”
Fox News, however, remains firmly in the president's camp. Murdoch is “put a part of the organization in an attack mode while maintaining the other [Fox News] In reserve while benefiting from the base of the person who is attacking, ”said Dodd.
The baron of the media has long enjoyed its proximity to power. He attended Trump's second inauguration in January and participated with business leaders at an Oval office meeting a few weeks later.
According to the reports, Murdoch was among the Trump VIP circle in New Jersey on July 13 for the FIFA Club World Cup football match.
Two days later, a magazine reporter sent an email to the White House Press Secretary, Karoline Leavitt, informing that the document was preparing to publish a story about Epstein's birthday letter, according to Trump's demand. Trump's lawyers retreated, saying that the accusations were false.
Trump called Murdoch, according to judicial presentations. “Murdoch advised President Trump to” take care of him, “Trump wrote in a July 17 publication about Truth Social, the day he published the story. “Obviously, I didn't have the power to do it,” Trump wrote.
Trump sued the next day. A Dow Jones spokeswoman replied: “We have full confidence in the rigor and precision of our reports, and we will defend vigorously against any demand.”
Legal dust occurs after a series of controversial victories for the president.
Last month, Paramount Global agreed to pay Trump $ 16 million to resolve a dispute in the “60 minutes” editions of a Kamala Harris interview, a lawsuit that according to experts in the amendment had no merit. In December, Walt Disney Co. paid $ 16 million to end a demand for defamation filed by Trump on inaccurate statements by ABC news presenter George Stephanopoulos, a result ridiculed by some amendment experts who thought Disney finally prevailed.
“President Trump has already defeated George Stephanopoulos/ABC, 60 minutes/cbs, and others, and hopes to sue and hold the Gran Street Journal anomitrial,” Trump wrote. “It has really turned out to be an” unpleasant and dirty rag. “
Murdoch's observers do not expect him to capitulate.
“In this strange world in which we live, Rupert is actually one of the few people who could be willing to face Trump, “Kahn said.” Remember, Rupert loves newspapers, loves scoop and loves to stir the pot. ”
The Times staff writer Stephen Battaglio contributed to this report.
